Italian-Born Symbolist Displays Work Created In Brazil

Francesco Clemente's artwork is known to have spiritual underpinnings. But what his paintings actually mean is anybody's guess. Clemente won't say. He won't even suggest.

"There is no set meaning. There are no captions. So you will not see what he does," said Robert Storr, dean of the Yale School of Art and curator of the new exhibit "Clemente → Brazil → Yale." "The symbols he uses open up possibilities for interpretation.

"He came from a neo-expressionist generation, but he's not an expressionist at all. He's a lively, spirited symbolist," Storr said. "He doesn't try to vent his feelings in his paintings. He puts into them coded images that you have to decode. It's slower, more reflective."

Clemente, a native of Italy, received schooling in India with a teacher influenced by famed spiritual thinker Krishnamurti. When he went to Brazil from 2006 to 2008 to create the artworks that are now on the walls in New Haven, he was inspired by the spiritual traditions of that South American country, specifically the African-based Santeria and its Brazilian counterpart, Candomble.

"He is a seeker in a way," Storr said. "He is interested in the accumulated layers and sparks of truth and insight that ancient traditions hold."

The exhibit consists of 12 oils and 18 watercolors, most of them studies for the oils. "I hung them side by side, to show that neither medium is superior or inferior, oils or watercolors," Storr said.

To create "The Ship of Time," Clemente went to a small Candomble meeting place deep in the brush country to see the symbols and rites of that religion, which has thrived for centuries despite attempts by the Catholic church to crush it.

The Catholic chuch also is the focus of "Father," a self-portrait of Clemente wearing a bishop's mitre.

Alongside images taken from spiritual sources, Clemente incorporates imagery of slavery; Brazil held on to slavery until 1888, the longest of any country in the Western Hemisphere. Bound wrists and clenched fists are common themes in his work, often paired with images of strength, including crowns, armor and swords.

The Yale show is the first time the work from this period of Clemente's career have been shown together. Commercial galleries, Storr said, are unlikely to embrace this type of work.

"These are very somber paintings, deep somber colors, the reds are blood red," he said. "These are not the bright, boring tropical colors that a lot of artists going to South America paint. His vision of Brazil is not influenced by the Carmen Miranda version of Brazil."

CLEMENTE → BRAZIL → YALE will be at The Yale School of Art's 32 Edgewood gallery, at 32 Edgewood Ave. in New Haven, until Sunday, June 2. Gallery hours are noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday. Admission is free. Details: http://art.yale.edu/Gallery